Advent 3: Joy & A Standing Ovation

Some days things just line up and magic happens. In my world, I would say that the Holy Spirit was moving and God's presence was suddenly very close, very real. You can try to engineer these God-moments but they don't often turn out like you might imagine, despite your best efforts. I find the most spirit-filled God-moments are those that times that the unplanned and the uncertain flow together with the decided details and everyone is a bit surprised by the result. You can't force a God-moment but you can allow for the Holy Spirit to take over and hope for the best.

Like this past Sunday. We (the Royal We of me and the music team) chose Joy for this third Sunday of Advent. It could be argued that Love is the third Sunday in Advent but we went with Joy. For the candle-lighting we have been using a liturgy from a resource that includes the song, "Lift Up Your Eyes". It is a lovely set of readings interspersed with the choir and/or the congregation singing. BUT the order of those readings were Hope, Peace, LOVE and then Joy. The office admin who formats the bulletins and does up the PowerPoint each week, didn't put two and two together and so the LOVE reading was read instead of the JOY reading. No biggie. That's how Advent sometimes goes when you have 7 services in 4 1/2 weeks - things get a little mixed up. But here is where the Holy Spirit was moving in that mix-up...

Our congregation had three visitors at the start of our service. And they came bearing gifts. No joke. Three men from the Muslim Prayer Group which prays in our church each Friday came to be with the congregation on Sunday. They had requested to join us for our prayer time so that they could give thanks to a member of our congregation, Frank. You see, Frank was asked to build some sort of storage units for the prayer mats used by the Muslim folks because they are so heavy to cart around on Fridays. And Frank built the most beautiful boxes ever. The men said that they give thanks to Frank each and every Friday when they put away their mats.

The men came up to the stage (our sanctuary was built as a theatre) and presented Frank with a heart-felt 'Thank You' and their gifts. I asked them to remain on the stage and invited the Chair of our Board to join us. The Chair then read to them a letter of support that we had written together on behalf of the congregation. It expressed our collective frustration at the misrepresentation of the Islam in the news and social media and by politicians, political candidates and national leaders. The letter assured the Prayer Group that they are loved and cared for by our community of faith and that they would always be welcome in our church. Our vision statement is: Your Church at the Centre of the Community. We stated that we would like it to also be: Your Mosque at the Centre of the Community.

When the Chair was finished reading, the congregation burst out in applause and rose from their seats. Everyone was clearly moved.

AND THEN...we all sat down and the Advent Candles were lit. With the wrong liturgy. Instead of expressing joy in the readings, love was expressed instead, with the following words (the bold is the congregation saying the words to together):

In a world torn asunder by violence, Jesus says, “No more.”

“As it is written, a new command I give,
‘Love one another as I have loved you’.”
In a world where hurting people are too often neglected,
Jesus says, “No more.”
“As it is written, a new command I give,
‘Love one another as I have loved you’.”
In a world where another’s needs are too often overlooked,
Jesus says, “No more.”
“As it is written, a new command I give,
‘Love one another as I have loved you’.”

Magic. Mistake. Coincidence. The Holy Spirit. God coming close. God being with us and amongst us as we prayed together. With our neighbours. With our family. Thanks be to God.